Senate shouldn't have passed on tanning bill

April 03, 2007

It was short sighted of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee to kill a proposed bill that would have regulated tanning businesses in South Dakota and prohibited tanning for those less than 18 years old. This is a public safety issue and one that deserves attention and support. The bill's prime sponsor was Aberdeen Democrat Sen. Alan Hoerth. Last week the committee heard testimony from Aberdeen dermatologist Dr. Warren Redmond and Lexie Lewis, a young Aberdeen woman who was diagnosed with skin cancer after a few months of tanning six days a week for 20 minutes a session. Lewis was 18 at the time and wanted to look good for her prom. Redmond was the physician who treated her. Redmond said he tried to warn the Legislature once before - about 20 years ago - of the possible relationship between skin cancer associated with cancer. The physician said he doesn't believe self regulation is working in the tanning industry. The committee disagreed. The vote against the legislation was 4-3. Believe it or not, the Department of Health also disagreed. It opposed the bill stating that its responsibilities are already broad and it has neither the time nor the money to oversee tanning businesses. Democratic Sens. Sandy Jerstad of Sioux Falls and Tom Katus of Rapid City were in the minority on the committee and both said they were "astonished" and "appalled" by the health department's position. We agree. Another senator on the committee, Sioux Falls Republican Jason Gant, voted to kill the bill. His position was that regulating the tanning industry ignores the possibility that there are also health dangers from extensive exposure to sun from swimming pools and beaches. The responsibility, he said, should be with parents. Perhaps, but the sun is an element of nature. Tanning beds are not. Tanning beds are an element of business. Businesses are regulated - for the best interest of the public - constantly. This decision just feels like a cop out. Especially considering the following information from the Skin Cancer Foundation. The Foundation's Web site - www.skincancer.org - says about 28 million Americans tan indoors annually, there are about 25,000 tanning salons around the country and the industry rakes in about $2 billion every year. It also references a recent study of more than 10,000 teens across the U.S. that found that tanning bed use was increasing, especially among adolescent girls. Here are some rather alarming statistics related to indoor tanning from the Cancer Foundation statistics:

In 1994, a Swedish study found that women 18-30 years old who visited tanning parlors 10 times or more a year had seven times greater incidence of melanoma than women who did not use tanning salons.

In 2002, a study from Dartmouth Medical School found that tanning device users had 2.5 times the risk of squamous cell carcinoma and 1.5 times the risk of basal cell carcinoma. Bob Riter, a lawyer representing South Dakota's tanning businesses, said the state's tanning industry is a responsible one. He said the association has about 80 members but that the number of actual commercial tanning salons in the state is unknown. There is some inconsistency there. We do agree with Riter on one point: He said the tanning industry's message was that there needs to be education and understanding of the questions involved. Absolutely - but that means that the issue of sunless tanning should be addressed and regulated, not just swept under the rug because people don't want to find the time and resources to do something about it.